Analysis of A Dilemma
Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)
Filled with a zeal to serve my fellow men,
For years I criticised their prose and verges:
Pointed out all their blunders of the pen,
Their shallowness of thought and feeling; then
Damned them up hill and down with hearty curses!
They said: 'That's all that he can do-just sneer,
And pull to pieces and be analytic.
Why doesn't he himself, eschewing fear,
Publish a book or two, and so appear
As one who has the right to be a critic?
'Let him who knows it all forbear to tell
How little others know, but show his learning.'
The public added: 'Who has written well
May censure freely'-quoting Pope. I fell
Into the trap and books began out-turning,
Books by the score-fine prose and poems fair,
And not a book of them but was a terror,
They were so great and perfect; though I swear
I tried right hard to work in, here and there,
(My nature still forbade) a fault or error.
'Tis true, some wretches, whom I'd scratched, no doubt,
Professed to find-but that's a trifling matter.
Now, when the flood of noble books was out
I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout,
Till I was thought as mad as any hatter!
(Why hatters all are mad, I cannot say.
'T were wrong in their affliction to revile 'em,
But truly, you'll confess 'tis very sad
We wear the ugly things they make. Begad,
They'd be less mischievous in an asylum!)
'Consistency, thou art a'-well, you're _paste_!
When next I felt my demon in possession,
And made the field of authorship a waste,
All said of me: 'What execrable taste,
To rail at others of his own profession!'
Good Lord! where do the critic's rights begin
Who has of literature some clear-cut notion,
And hears a voice from Heaven say: 'Pitch in'?
He finds himself-alas, poor son of sin
Between the devil and the deep blue ocean!
Scheme | ABAAB CDCCD EFEEF GHGGH IHIIH XXXIX IJKKJ LJLLJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1101111101 111111010 1011110101 1100110101 11110111010 1111111111 0111001010 110101101 1001110101 11110111010 111111111 11010111110 0101011101 110110111 01010101110 1101110101 01011111010 1011001111 1111110101 11010101110 111111111 01111101010 1101110111 11101110101 11111111010 111111101 101010101011 1101011101 110101111 11110001010 0100111111 11111100010 010111001 111111001 11110111010 1111010101 111100011110 0101110110 1101011111 01010001110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,717 |
Words | 326 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 168 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 40 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:40 min read
- 68 Views
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"A Dilemma" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1618/a-dilemma>.
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